But we will not be deterred. With vaccines available, many people just go out to Playa anyways in a loosely arranged "Free Burn."

The BLM, in a slight panic, makes any art "installations" illegal and commercial deliveries also not allowed, so our plans to bring out PDA are stymied (though many ignore the rules and nothing seems to happen to them).

It turns out to be pretty great. Different from a normal burn, but far better than a Juplaya. We have a blast.

There was an online map where people could agree to self-place their camps, which didn't quite happen, though the center was actually mostly cleared. Our camp was placed near center (on the other side from usual), but that was not PDA's final location, because our PDA townies who got to burn first decided to camp out in the boonies, and everyone ended up joining them. We did that for one night then decided to be in the action, so we ended up right near the original spot, but on "Esplanade" just off to the side of the Black Rock Boutique.

Our way to the man was "exciting". We had an overheat problem on the bus that we knew had to be dealt with, and we needed a new A/C. So we went South to pickup an A/C and also to give the bus a test run. It was failing. So I spent a couple days trying to get the bus up to the burn little by little, when I managed to find a mechanic on the phone back in Sacramento (I was near Truckee) who knew what was wrong, so I brought it back down, and met up again with Charlie/Timmy and we made it to the burn!